Memorable Characters

If I were to ask you about a memorable character that you’ve read and loved or watched and enjoyed, who would come to mind?

I can name several:
• Jo March from Little Women (another writerly inspiration)
• Captain Benjamin Franklin “Hawkeye” Pierce on M*A*S*H,
• Hazel Grace and Gus from The Fault in Our Stars,
• Meredith Grey and Cristina Yang from Grey’s Anatomy and
• Two of my most favourites, Jesse and Celine from the Before Trilogy of Before Sunset, Before Sunrise and Before Midnight.

What makes a character stand out in our minds?

Is it how well-crafted their flaws or personality are? Is it the way a character is brought to life on the page through precision of detail? Could it be how they come alive on screen through brilliant acting?

Whatever you may think, each starts within the fabric of a writer’s mind.

They either take from qualities in people they know to fashion a familiar persona or magically create one from scratch, someone you will come to love or will love to hate.

But in all, it is the giftedness of the writer who begins that journey of creation and if done correctly, leaves us with someone physically real and true.

I admire the evolution of character.

I love to watch how the inner being develops. How feelings can evolve from one end of the spectrum to either the middle or other side.

But not only that, I marvel at the brilliance involved in carefully crafting that inch by inch journey, that step by step mental process that a character goes through and how they ultimately come to feel, experience and view their fictional world.

That is the aim of what we do here in our writing sphere. We hope to fashion someone memorable.

We long to breathe life into an entity that will live on long after we do. We desire to carve that person into a believable framework that will elicit an emotional reaction in our reader or viewer.

That’s what makes the great ones great in the literary universe. Even if a story fails, a character can still be vibrant enough to be remembered.

And so I carry on and hope beyond hope that you will like or even love struggling Mary and loyal Sam, careless Cooper, or supportive Nate, dedicated Sadie and even flighty fun Georgie.